Instead, Earth may be unusually lucky, because it happened to be situated close enough to the “right” kind of supernova.

Astronomer Dr Jane Greaves, from the University of Cardiff, said: “The route to carrying phosphorus into new-born planets looks rather precarious.

“We already think that only a few phosphorus-bearing minerals that came to the Earth, probably in meteorites, were reactive enough to get involved in making proto-biomolecules.

“If phosphorus is sourced from supernovae, and then travels across space in meteoritic rocks, I’m wondering if a young planet could find itself lacking in reactive phosphorus because of where it was born?

“In that case, life might really struggle to get started out of phosphorus-poor chemistry, on another world otherwise similar to our own.”

The evidence comes from observations of two supernova “remnants”, Cassiopeia A (Cas A) and the famous Crab Nebula.

The team used the UK’s William Herschel Telescope on La Palma, Canary Islands, to look for signatures of phosphorus and iron from the Crab Nebula, the aftermath of a supernova explosion 6,500 light years away in the constellation of Taurus.

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